Contadora Island

Contadora Island (Island)
Locations	Panama
A safe haven in Panama where U.S. politicians and corporate executives enjoyed sex and drugs away from the prying eyes of the international press, particularly in the 1980s.

Isla Contadora (or Contadora Island in English) is a Panamanian island in the Gulf of Panama. It has an area of 1.39 km² and a population of 253 (census 2000). In the 1970s and 80s, it was a safe haven where U.S. politicians and corporate executives enjoyed sex and drugs away from the prying eyes of the international press.

John Perkins believes that George W. Bush was secretly filmed while having sex with prostitutes and doing drugs there. According to Perkins, this was one of the reasons his father, then President George HW Bush, invaded Panama in 1989, in order to seize the incriminating tapes.

Overview

Contadora has a small regional/domestic airport, and has regular flights to and from Panama City. Rich patrons arrived in private planes, or by yacht.

History

The island was bought by Gabriel Lewis Galindo in 1969, who began development of the island. Then the Panamanian Government became the majority stockholder in a development corporation called Contadora Panama.

The resort was allegedly in reality owned by Colombian drug lords as a money-laundering oasis. However, in 2009 one of the owners perished in a plane crash, leaving the place in serious debt.

In the 1960s, a sprawling, elegant resort was constructed and became a prestigious haven for the rich. Consisting of over three hundred rooms and an elegant dining room where sumptuous meals and elaborate drinks were served; it is said the champagne flowed like a fountain. Numerous outbuildings were built to accommodate the richest of the rich and their diverse pleasures, including a casino. The island had 80 private homes.

The island and the resort became exclusive, expensive, and patronized by the rich and famous. Hollywood stars such as Sophia Loren, Christian Dior, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, and the Rockefellers and the the Kennedys bought private getaways or resided in the now famous resort.

In 1980, the exiled and dying Iranian shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, briefly lived in Contadora.

Ellsworth Bunker stayed on a villa on the island when negotiating the Panama Canal treaties in the late 1970s.

Sexual blackmail of Bush family

John Perkins believed that George W. Bush was secretly filmed while having sex with prostitutes and and doing drugs there. According to Perkins, this was one of the reasons then President George HW Bush invaded Panama in 1990, in order to seize the incriminating tapes.

“Surely you've heard the rumors about why Noriega was taken down and today rots in a U.S. prison."

"I've heard that he had cameras on Contadora Island." It was an infamous resort off Panama's coast, a "safe haven" where U.S. businessmen could treat politicians to every conceivable vice. I had visited—and used—Contadora several times during my EHM days.

"You heard who got caught by those cameras?"

"Rumors that George W. was photographed doing coke and having kinky sex during the time his father was president." There was a theory in Latin America that Noriega had used incriminating photos of the younger Bush and his cronies to convince the older Bush, the president, to side with the Panamanian administration on key issues. In retaliation, H. W. invaded Panama and hustled Noriega off to a Miami prison. The building housing Noriega's confidential files had been incinerated by bombs; as a side effect, more than two thousand innocent civilians were burned to death in Panama City that day in December 1989. Many people claimed that this theory offered the only logical explanation for violently attacking a nation without an army and that posed no threat to the United States.
Jose nodded. "From where I sit, those rumors ring awfully true. I've experienced things that take them out of the realm of fantasy." He cocked his head. "So have you." He paused, looking around. "And it terrifies me."
”
John Perkins (2007) 

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Hoodwinked	“Panama's chief of government, Omar Torrijos, foresaw this meltdown and understood its implications back in 1978, when I was an economic hit man (EHM). He and I were standing on the deck of a sailing yacht docked at Contadora Island, a safe haven where U.S. politicians and corporate executives enjoyed sex and drugs away from the prying eyes of the international press. Omar told me that he was not about to be corrupted by me. He said that his goal was to set his people free from "Yankee shackles," to make sure his country controlled the canal, and to help Latin America liberate itself from the very thing I represented and he referred to as "predatory capitalism." "You know," he added, "what I'm suggesting will ultimately benefit your children too." He explained that the system I was promoting where a few exploited the many was doomed. "The same as the old Spanish Empire — it will implode." He took a drag off his Cuban cigar and exhaled the smoke slowly, like a man blowing a kiss. "Unless you and I and all our friends fight the predatory capitalists," he warned, "the global economy will go into shock." He glanced across the water and then back at me. "No permitas que te engañen," he said ("Don't allow yourself to be hoodwinked.") Three decades later, Omar is dead, likely assassinated because he refused to succumb to our attempts to bring him around, but his words ring true. For that reason I chose one of them as the title of my latest book, Hoodwinked.”	John Perkins	2009

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